At first glance, Stage 2 isnt too bad, but there are 4 steep hills in the middle - 2 of which are cobbled. The longest of the cobbled ones is at 15%!
After the cobbled sections 8 riders got a gap on a seriously depleted field - 5 Unibet, 2 Predictor and 1 Quick Step but they didnt work well together and dropped back to the peleton, leaving just the two survivors of the breakaway, Scherilinckx and Ickx, ahead of the bunch.
The peleton was down to 37 and Manan was starting to struggle, the cobbled climbs had taken a lot of effort, plus I doubt a cobbled rating of 56 helped much. He got dropped along with British teammates Stannard, Staff and Lloyd, leaving only Hoy left in the peleton.
Hoy would now face 30km of flat roads to try and hang on to the peleton. With 8km to go, Scherilinckx was caught and it seemed that there were still a lot of sprinters left.
Steurs led the sprint but then stopped and was passed by Den Bakker. Den Bakker was looking good but could not hold off Greg Van Avermaet and Van Avermaet took victory.
Chris Hoy clung on to the pack and could now grab the leaders jersey in tomorrow's time trial.
1 Greg Van Avermaet PREDICTOR - LOTTO 4h50'57
2 Maarten Den Bakker SKIL - SHIMANO s.t.
3 Marco Zanotti UNIBET.COM s.t.
4 Roy Sentjens PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
5 Geert Steurs PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
6 Kevin Hulsmans QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
7 Jonas Ljungblad UNIBET.COM s.t.
8 Huub Duyn TEAM SLIPSTREAM s.t.
9 Geert Omloop JARTAZI PROMO FASHION s.t.
10 Bart Dockx PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
11 Michael Blanchy BABES ONLY - VILLAPARK LINGEMEER - FLANDERS s.t.
12 Janek Tombak JARTAZI PROMO FASHION s.t.
13 Jurgen Roelandts DAVITAMON - WIN FOR LIFE - JONG VLAANDEREN s.t.
14 Nico Sijmens LANDBOUWKREDIET - TÖNISSTEINER s.t.
15 Koen Barbé CHOCOLADE JACQUES - TOPSPORT VLAANDEREN s.t.
16 Jérôme Baugnies DAVITAMON - WIN FOR LIFE - JONG VLAANDEREN s.t.
17 Ronny Poelvoorde BABES ONLY - VILLAPARK LINGEMEER - FLANDERS s.t.
18 Geert Verheyen QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
19 Kevin Neirynck LANDBOUWKREDIET - TÖNISSTEINER s.t.
20 Filip Meirhaeghe LANDBOUWKREDIET - TÖNISSTEINER s.t.
21 Kristof Goddaert DAVITAMON - WIN FOR LIFE - JONG VLAANDEREN s.t.
22 Maarten Neyens DAVITAMON - WIN FOR LIFE - JONG VLAANDEREN s.t.
23 Frederik Veuchelen CHOCOLADE JACQUES - TOPSPORT VLAANDEREN s.t.
24 Laurens Ten Dam UNIBET.COM s.t.
25 Jan Kuyckx LANDBOUWKREDIET - TÖNISSTEINER s.t.
26 Chris Hoy DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
27 Gil Suray UNIBET.COM + 1'26
28 Kai Reus RABOBANK s.t.
29 Dimitry Kozontchuk RABOBANK s.t.
30 Bert Scheirlinckx LANDBOUWKREDIET - TÖNISSTEINER + 2'40
31 Floris Goesinnen SKIL - SHIMANO + 3'07
32 Nick Ingels PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 3'45
33 Sébastien Delfosse PÔLE CONTINENTAL WALLON BODYSOL - EUROMILLIONS s.t.
34 Hervé Duclos-Lassalle COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE s.t.
35 Jurgen François JARTAZI PROMO FASHION s.t.
36 Fabio Polazzi PÔLE CONTINENTAL WALLON BODYSOL - EUROMILLIONS s.t.
37 Wesley Van der Linden CHOCOLADE JACQUES - TOPSPORT VLAANDEREN s.t.
38 Tyler Farrar COFIDIS, LE CRÉDIT PAR TÉLÉPHONE s.t.
39 Sebastian Langeveld RABOBANK s.t.
40 Steven De Neef DAVITAMON - WIN FOR LIFE - JONG VLAANDEREN s.t.
48 Anuar Manan DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
54 Jamie Staff DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
63 Daniel Lloyd DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
68 Robby Meul DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 5'29
71 Ian Stannard DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
83 Sven De Weerdt DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 8'15
105 Rhys Pollock DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 15'20 (Pollock had crashed descending the first of the sttep hills)